In recent years, the popularity and prevalence of cloud-based and other online storage systems has increased dramatically. Cloud-based storage systems offer virtually unlimited storage and worldwide access to data via the Internet to users, applications, and services.
Unfortunately, some potential users of cloud-based storage systems may be hesitant to begin using such storage systems due to the amount of time and resources that may be required to complete an initial transfer of data to these storage systems via the Internet or other networks. For example, a large enterprise may wish to store potentially hundreds of terabytes of data on a cloud-based storage system. While subsequent additions or modifications to this data may be transferred to the cloud-based storage system relatively quickly, the initial transfer of such a large data set may take days or weeks to complete, potentially consuming unacceptable amounts of the enterprise's computing and/or networking resources. Similar problems may also occur when large numbers of customers simultaneously request the restoration or transfer of large amounts of data from the same cloud-based storage system.
Some cloud-based storage vendors have attempted to overcome such issues by providing their customers with physical media (such as DVDs, USB flash drives, hard drives, or the like) with instructions to store the data that is to be transferred to the storage vendor on the physical media and then return the same to the storage vendor. Unfortunately, given the large amounts of data involved, cloud-based storage vendors may be required to provide their customers with potentially hundreds of physical media in order to facilitate such data transfers, potentially incurring significant costs. As such, the instant disclosure identifies a need for reducing the costs associated with transferring data from one location to another via physical storage media.